Visual Confirmation
by lemonpiefirefly
Summary: Jack/ Sam UST, Broca Divide Episode Tag. Jack has some missing memories after his bout with the Land of Light illness he needs to come to grips with. AO January challenge-"resolution".


Jack O'Neill rounded the last corner before his home, then pulled the truck to a stop in his driveway. He did an automatic visual sweep of the premises before shutting off the vehicle and hopping out, flipping absentmindedly to the key on his keychain that would unlock his house while clicking the remote lock for his truck on his key fob.

Tucked in front of him in a football carry was a thin, flat rectangular object, wrapped in a paper bag. He walked briskly to his front door, did another suspicious double-take around him, then unlocked it and stepped inside. Once through the threshold, he turned, shut the door, and locked it. He walked down into the living room, bent down and lightly slid his keys onto the coffee table. He slowly stood up and then stared at the oblong package in his hand.

For a third time, he assessed his surroundings. This time, he noticed something that simply would not do; something he needed to attend to before he could continue with his musings on the flat, wrapped parcel. He set it gently down next to the keys, then turned and strode over to the window. The angled rays of a sun heading toward sunset were bouncing gleefully around the yard and setting his dwelling alight. No, this certainly was not right. He pulled the blinds closed and even snugged the curtains shut. There. Darker. Insular. Free from prying eyes.

His desire for privacy now satisfied, it was time to go examine the contents of the package in greater detail. He walked over to the coffee table and stooped over to scoop up the parcel. As he straightened his posture, he shifted it in his grasp and held it with thumb and one finger, dangling it, like it was something slightly distasteful. He wasn't quite sure if he should open it, or destroy it, toss it in the trash, and think 'good riddance'.

That wasn't such a bad idea, really.

But no. He was going to open it. He had to know what secrets it contained.

The decision reached, he quickly ripped the paper bag off the object like he was pulling off a band-aid, and let the pieces fall to the floor. What was revealed was a fairly ordinary-looking VHS tape, with a few numbers indicating a location and a time. It was, in fact, a tape from a security camera at the SGC. A tape a certain T Sgt with an Audio-Visual Club bent had located and given to him, no questions asked. He had a sinking feeling that the absence of questions now was going to lead to some form of payback later, but he had to do this. He had to know.

He mused on the existence of the thing. "_One thing you do when you join the military is give up your privacy_," he thought. Looking around again at his drawn curtains, he mentally qualified that thought, "_pretty much _all _of your privacy_." This was especially true with the highly classified nature of his current assignment. So, though this wouldn't typically happen in the private sector, on a secure base hundreds of feet underground, a camera had been installed in the locker room. This just made good sense, particularly at Stargate Command. Off-world teams frequently went straight to the locker room after a mission, before reporting to the infirmary for post-mission checkups. Strange things had been known to happen in the field to off-world teams, and it was essential to be able to go back and figure out what went wrong, and when, and be able to backtrack movements of personnel. Surveillance wasn't personal; it just made sense. Now, as a bit of a concession to privacy, a sort of compromise, the locker room feed was not a monitored one. It could be pulled up if the need arose, but it was a basically-understood convention that it was not being watched in the security bay as a matter of course. "_No one wants to feel like someone is leering at them while they are getting dressed, no matter how military they are_," he observed.

"_So, the dirty old Colonel is preparing to go ahead and leer_," he added, with a touch of irony and a wry half-smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. It had been awhile since he felt like considering going to confession; that ship had pretty much sailed, been hit by a Zero, sank, rusted on the bottom of the ocean and was now languishing as a coral reef. But here he stood, feeling Catholic school boy, Original-Sin-guilty about what he was going to do, and wishing a couple 'Hail Marys' would take the curse off it.

When the Land of Light virus had affected them, everyone had done a few things "under-the-influence" that were wildly out of character. With an inward groan, he recalled one of his own low points during the infection, "_I beat the crap out of Daniel, for cryin' out loud_!"

With a bit more honesty, he admitted to himself that wasn't _strictly_ out of character for him; just out-of-control.

And out-of-control? Now _that_ was out of character.

But he didn't remember much about the incident except a blood-lust rage and a red haze over his vision. He definitely remembered being pissed, but the motivation and actions were a jumble. They felt very much removed from his life, and could have been from a poorly-recalled movie scene as much reality as it held for him. He just didn't remember it clearly.

That inability to remember in detail was what brought him to this moment. He shuffled forward, in a bit of a daze at what he was about to do, and slid the tape into the player. Grabbing the remote, he walked back to his easy chair and settled uncomfortably down at the edge, leaning forward in apprehensive anticipation.

The television blinked on, and a hazy picture began to play, then it shut off and the tape began rewinding. "_Crap; I've got to cue it_." That was encouraging; hopefully that meant the tape had finished recording and the personnel had just swapped it out and labeled it per protocol. Hopefully, with all the chaos on the base when the Broca virus was rampant, no one had thought to review this, even though there had been an "incident" in the locker room (much downplayed in the official report, of course) around this time.

He let it run all the way back and stop automatically, and set it to "play" again. No one was on the screen. After a minute of this, he saw a few people walking by in towels, coming out of the showers. He hit fast-forward and ran it till he saw himself walk over to his locker and start drying himself off. At least, he thought that was him. The footage was grainy. Yes, that should be his locker. Suddenly, _she_ was there. Samantha Carter. His junior officer. She walked up and stood behind the open locker door, and then within seconds, she pounced on him. Yes, pounced. Like some kind of jungle-thing. He saw himself push her away a couple times (or, more accurately, the tall brown-headed fuzzy thing pushed away the slightly smaller and less-clad blonde-headed fuzzy thing), then she flat out threw him down on the bench.

He remembered a couple things more vividly now, "_That was a hard landing. And a hard kiss_."

Was it getting hot in here? He felt the heat building in his face at what he was doing.

He should be ashamed of himself.

He snapped out of his reverie, and then realized he was hopeless when he ran the tape back to catch what his musings made him miss.

He re-watched the expert take-down, and thought again about how surprised he had been when Carter was able to fight that crazy Hun, "_or whoever he was back on that throwback misogynist planet we visited_." That was another thing he'd remembered, seeing this again. How strong she was. How vital. How human.

Jack was sure that just wasn't normal for a scientist.

Then, he'd finally gotten the upper hand and they slid off the bench, down to the floor, him on top of his teammate. "_That was a much softer landing_," he mused, and the heat returned, this time more wide-spread. He began to remember the feeling of her, struggling to get up, and then peeling her wild form off the floor, battling this gorgeously crazed creature till he was able to summon a couple others in the locker room to help subdue her till they could get her to the infirmary. The little twisting group on the tape moved out the door, he the one who had her wrapped tightly to his chest, and another flash of memory assailed him.

_The smell of her hair in his face, the heaving of her slight ribcage under his arms... _

The tape played on, but it had triggered several sensations that had been lost to him during his bout with the same illness that had brought out this primal behavior in his team member. An illness that heightened those feelings of aggressive desire in himself as well, and as he had started losing control, those recent memories had taken on a new meaning and devolved into thoughts that were unbecoming, to say the least. "_It's a good thing we didn't get sick at the same time_," Jack thought, _"...Right? I mean, damn right!_"

As his hand moved to hit the "stop" on the remote, he felt like he was watching himself from another corner of the room. Had he just watched that, knowing what he'd see? Knowing he'd see a junior officer in a compromising position, with no ability to help herself? "_She was under the influence of that damn virus. This doesn't mean a damned thing. Not a thing. Except that I'm a low bastard for wanting to see her taken over and out-of-control like that_," the Colonel thought. He let that sink in. The truth in that thought started to rankle, and his mind cast about for a more palatable excuse for watching the tape. He had it. "_And I can't abide having missing time like that. It's my _duty_ to know what happened. It's my job to stay informed_." Yes. His job. His mind grasped desperately at this possible way for him to save face. This was all job-related. He was second-in-command of the SGC; he needed to check out the base security, right?

With an eye well-trained to security precautions and monitoring systems, (and yes, dammit, that was the only consideration here, professional interest only, period, and he was willing to repress whatever was necessary to finally, firmly believe that), he had one more thought.

He got up from the chair, feeling the heat slowly ebbing from his face, and stood ram-rod straight. He looked around the room, in a manner that said to an imagined observer, "_I knew you were watching," _and audibly cleared his throat before voicing his final, expert decree.

"We really need to get some cameras with better resolution."

He walked over to the player, ejected the tape, and made a bee line toward the kitchen to cut it up and throw it away.


End file.
